by
Pastor Steve EllisonThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

10:15 AM, Friday, June 13 2014 | 3423 views | 5 | 65 | |

American Christians bemoan the condition of culture around them and rightly so.

The state of our nation is lower than low. We deserve and should expect the judgment of God to fall sooner rather than later.

The state of our culture and our nation is a terrible problem, but the larger problem is the state of the church. We wish for true revival to break out.

I am not sure that our “wish” includes a “will.” I am not sure we are willing to do that which would be conducive to God sending revival. The major obstacle to God sending real revival in our churches is the fact that we have so many lost (unsaved, not regenerated) church members.

A lost person has no spark of life in them to revive. A saved person, one who has passed from death to life, is a candidate for reviving. Perhaps the American church is in need of a basic lesson in what it means to be saved and thus be a candidate for being revived.

1 John 5:12 spells it out clearly, “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” John 17:3 defines life, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

John 10:27-28 tells us what this life will be like and assures us of its permanency, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”

Romans 8:16 tells us how we can be sure that we have this life, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 proclaims a great truth that ought not to be ignored, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

There will be a before and after picture. Anyone who claims to be a Christian but demonstrates no observable change in his life has great cause to examine himself to see if he is really a Christian (saved).

1 John 2:19 speaks to those who believe they are Christians but see no need to remain active with a local church, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”

Every Christian will have a desire to fellowship with other believers. Chapter 3 of First John repeats several times that the one who claims to be a Christian and lives in habitual, willful sin is not a Christian at all. The 21st century American church is filled with people who claim to be children of God but are not.

Romans 10:9-10 gives the very simple, free but not easy, remedy, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

God has made salvation so very simple. He has also made self-evaluation simple. God has given a simple tape measure with which any person can measure himself to see if he is truly a redeemed person, adopted into God’s family, destined to spend eternity with God.

I think revival might break out in America if a lot of church members got saved.

1 Corinthians 2:14-16 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that He may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.